About Stephen Covey

Stephen Richards Covey was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death.

Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come
forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the
reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and
disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage
or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other
embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing,
not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the
quality of their relationships with others.

In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the
fourth human endowment-independent will-that really makes effective
self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices
and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than
to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed
through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to
use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what
we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions
come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic)
rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will
sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the
foundation necessary for effective interdependence.

The character ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of
success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and
that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as
they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.